Extra Virgin Olive Oil

We’ve been told for years that extra virgin olive oil is bursting with healthful goodness, and that we should pour it all over everything. It’s full of the good kind of fat! It has antioxidants! It reduces heart disease! It has natural anti-inflammatory compounds! The good news is that all of that is true. The bad news? Your brand of olive oil might not be extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil is among the most adulterated food products sold on the world market.

The amount of unsaturated fat in olive oil, however, means that olive oil protects against heart disease and even help control blood sugars in diabetics. An anti-oxidant known as DHPEA-EDA, which can help protect red blood cells and reduce the amount of low density lipoproteins (LDLs — the bad cholesterol) in the human body, is readily found in olive oil. That is…assuming that you actually are consuming extra virgin olive oil.

If you are using real extra virgin olive oil, and not the adulterated grocery store version, then olive oil isn’t actually very good for high-heat cooking. Olive oil can be used for sautéing, of course, but to really enjoy the flavor of true extra-virgin olive oil, it’s best used as a dressing for salads, soups, cheeses, and pastas. Highly refined olive oil is stable at higher temperatures, but it lacks the flavor of cold pressed EVOO.